Changing Perceptions of Privacy Online

Investigative reporters are having an increasingly hard time protecting the people who report on government misconduct. One of reporters’ roles is to ensure institutional accountability, but because of the ease with which government collects records of who is talking to whom, and in some cases, what they are saying, the people who are the sources of information about misconduct are reluctant to talk. Attempts for reporters to encrypt their conversations are met with frustration and failure because the user interfaces to encryption software are ungodly awful. Some reporters are consequently avoiding steps to secure their information. This could have long-reaching consequences of shutting down important disclosures because the sources fear reprisals.